Cargo Cult - Who is John Frum? He is known to us by many names, this Visitor from Elsewhere, dispenser of endless abundance and wielder of mysterious technologies: John Frum, Quetzalcoatl, Osiris, "Bob." His cargo is splendid, his generosity boundless, his motives beyond our understanding. But across the ages and around the world, the stories all agree: one day he will return, bearing great gifts. Our theme this year asks three related questions; who is John Frum, where is he really from, and where, on spaceship Earth, are we all going?

We did a steampunk airship outpost back in 2011. If you can get the leather zeppelin fitted with a time travel function, it will be great to have had you come visit. Apologies for not having remembered, things got a little fuzzy once the absinthe smoothie party got started...

NASA wrote:The US Congress held hearings to investigate the impact hazard in 1993, 1998, and 2002, and both NASA and the US Air Force are supporting surveys to discover NEOs. In 1998 NASA formally initiated the Spaceguard Survey by adopting the objective of finding 90% of the NEAs larger than 1 km diameter within the next decade (that is, before the end of 2008). In 1998 NASA also created a NEO Program Office, and today $3-4 million per year is being spent on NASA-supported NEO searches and orbit calculations. Other governments have expressed concern about the NEO hazard, but none has yet funded any extensive surveys or related defense research. A private Spaceguard Foundation based in Europe promotes NEO surveys internationally, and further interest on an international basis is provided by the International Astronomical Union, the International Council of Scientific Unions, and the United Nations.